Earth Day: The Beginning
On April 22, 1970, colleges and universities all over the country joined in celebrating the first Earth Day to climax several months of activities to foster environmental awareness. During the months before, students and faculty joined local clergy, labor leaders, public school teachers and members of conservation groups in committees to plan the observance.
Nearly 20 million people participated. It was the largest, cleanest, most peaceful demonstration in America’s history. The participants demonstrated against the environmental problems of the Day, many of which are still with us. Pollution. Overpopulation. Overkill. Slums. Racism. Wasted resources. Planned obsolescence. Endless war.
On April 22, a generation dedicated itself to reclaiming the planet. A new kind of movement was born—a bizarre alliance that spans the ideological spectrum from campus militants to middle Americans. Its aim: to reverse our rush toward self-inflicted extinction. The organizers, an ad hoc group called Environmental Action led by Dennis Hayes presciently observed, “If the environmental movement succeeds it will profoundly change corporations, government and the way each of us lives. But it faces obstacles that are political as well as technical. And the battle lines are already being drawn.”
Earth Day featured dawn-to-midnight lectures and discussions on campuses throughout the Country by men and women who were mapping out the battlefields for urgent, and perhaps most bitter, issues and conflicts which would be decided in legislatures, in courts, in government agency hearings, in stockholders’ meetings, and in the streets.
Yannacone opened the day at Dawn at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan and finished the day at midnight closing an evening extravaganza at the Brown County Arena in Wisconsin following M. King Hubbert of the U.S. Geological Survey who was delivering a scholarly appraisal of the bleak future of fossil fuel resources around the globe. , but not until a tornado-like hail storm, uprooted trees and downed power lines then blew out the doors and windows of the arena and tore off the arena roof just over the stage literally drowning out the final words of Dr. Hubbert. A few minutes after midnight the storm passed, the moon shone through the now open roof and the 3,000-member audience got to hear Yannacone deliver his rousing “Sue the Bastards” call to action from the moonlit stage in the stentorian tones he used in the Courtroom.